This week a new feature hit the pages of the Pirate Bay, now with a button for each torrent that allows the user to “Share on Facebook.” With a click of that button, the torrent will appear on a user’s Facebook page, and visitors of that page can click on the torrent link to begin the download straight away without the need to even hit the Pirate Bay.

Predictably the entertainment industry is extremely unhappy about this development, once again saying that it feels that providing links to copyrighted material is illegal.

That, of course, does open up the argument that there are plenty of legitimate files that would be great for sharing on Facebook; but that is one of the Pirate Bay’s argument regarding its service -- that it could be used for completely legal purposes.

TorrentFreak quotes the Pirate Bay’s Peter Sunde saying, “As far as I know, no rights-holders have complained to us yet,” though any complaints would be largely ridiculed by the site anyway.

Sunde also said that the Pirate Bay doesn’t feel the need to check with Facebook regarding its new app: “They [are] monitoring their portal [sic] every day - they should have noticed it long ago.”

Facebook has yet to comment on the Pirate Bay torrent sharing functionality.

Marcus Yam served as Tom's Hardware News Director during 2008-2014. He entered tech media in the late 90s and fondly remembers the days when an overclocked Celeron 300A and Voodoo2 SLI comprised a gaming rig with the ultimate street cred.

I think Pirate Bay need to get the court cases out of the way and cement their position first before they start rubbing people's noses in it...right now they're in danger of just pissing too many people off.

PLUS, who would be stupid enough to share an illegal torrent anyway? OK, Pirate Bay may come out legal in all of this, but if a Facebook user clicks a torrent then surely they can be grabbed directly - tangible evidence that they've downloaded illegal material.

If Pirate Bay don't come out of this, then this could well drag Facebook with them as they'll be just as complicitous in providing easy access to illegal material by serving these links.

@LePhuronn - Your point about linking torrents to yourself in facebook space is so bang on I Can't Believe It's Not. You’d have to be mental to do this. But what a great way for unsigned bands to spread music.

The problem with the whole thing is - and this goes out to the whole world.

A. There is no such thing as an illegal torrent. (It’s just an instruction list of how to put a file together.) It should be no worse than having a cassette player blueprint – You know, one of the evils ones that could copy tape A to tape B.

You can find out how to make a gun or thermit using google - much worse than a torrent.

B. A list of list shouldn't be illegal. TPB isn’t breaking a law. A government or a body of who scans the use of TPB is breaking the law. It’s a wiretap. Where is the warrant against the individual?

C. If you post torrent on yourface book that links off to a file that you don't own - you're a tit. If you post 100001links and have a good mix of files and take down the odd one that’s reported to you - You're great. Please give it a go.